INSPIRATION
Going to the Dogs
Speaking of A-Teams, de la Port runs for Die Vuilhonde( The Dirty Dogs). The club grew out of a social running group that bonded during the COVID period and decided to make it official by registering as a running club in Gauteng North. The Dirty Dogs moniker is a literal derivation from the dust and grime that they would return home with after a long trail run.
Celebrating in Style
To put this achievement into perspective, going through Drummond in 3:55:40( as Lindt did) requires a 21m41s negative split. Has anyone else come close? Not as far as I know. I couldn’ t find anyone else who’ d gone through Drummond over 3h50 and earned a silver medal, so Lindt’ s negative split performance for a Silver is as big a statistical outlier as one can get.
The club has around 100 members, a large proportion of whom run Comrades each year, and they normally return home with a 100 %‘ matric pass’ rate. Their average time from the 2024 Comrades was a speedy 8:55. The club’ s Top Dog in 2024 was Lindt’ s running partner, Yolande Maclean, who claimed club honours on the day with a 6:54:57 and added a third Isavel Roche-Kelly medal to her impressive medal collection, that includes 9 Golds( the second-highest for a South African woman, after Farwa Mentoor).
With results like these, I guess you could say that whilst every dog might have his day, Die Vuilhonde have their day once a year in June. Or perhaps the conventional wisdom that‘ If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas’ should be changed to‘ If you train with the Vuilhonde, you’ ll end up with PBs’?
The plan that came together perfectly
So how does one celebrate after achieving what is probably the biggest negative split of all time at Comrades to earn a Silver medal? I posed the question to Lindt whether he did anything special to celebrate his Silver, and the simple answer( which I cannot fault, as I would do the same thing) was,“ Not really, I just drank a lot.”
I did enquire whether de la Port actually drinks Port, and this seems to be a hard no:“ Only if all the other alcohol is finished.” On a related not, I suspect some reading this article are wondering whether our protagonist’ s parents had a particular fondness for Swiss chocolate, but his first name originates from his mother’ s maiden name, Lindhout. He does, however, work in the sugar industry, but when he’ s not drinking beer or tequila and tonic, he saves the sugar for his clients and keeps his weight in check with a Coke Zero.
The good news is that Lindt has shared his detailed race plan and provided some meticulous analysis about how to run a Silver Comrades, and you’ ll find links to these here. On that, another famous bearded bloke that liked to run( Forrest) once said,“ Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ re going to get.” However, if you follow Lindt’ s advice, you can plan your next Comrades silver medal quest down to the second!
Enjoying a few drinks with the Vuilhonde after another successful Comrades
SECOND HALF BLITZ
What Nangolo Asiphala achieved in the 2025 Comrades Marathon is an absolute rarity. – BY STUART MANN
Images: Marathon Photos
One of the Comrades stats I am interested in every year is,“ Who goes through Drummond the slowest and still earns a medal?” That’ s because there are usually just a small handful of people who go through Drummond in more than six hours and cross the finish line under 12 hours. Someone going through Drummond over 6h10 and earning a finisher’ s medal is a real rarity.
In 2025, the honour of slowest through Drummond to earn a medal went to Namibian Nangolo Ashipala, from the Windhoek City Runners Club. He went through Drummond in 6:11:47 and had to run 24 minutes faster over the second half for a‘ perfectly paced’ 11:59:38 Vic Clapham medal.( Sidenote: I am not aware of anyone going through halfway slower and earning a medal.)
That’ s an average pace of 36 seconds per kilometre faster from the halfway mark! The distance from the Drummond timing mat to the finish meant that the second‘ half’ was actually 380m longer, making his negative split an even more impressive feat.
However, it was not plain sailing from halfway for Ashipala. Looking at the stats, he ran his slowest split of the day on the tortuous climb to Botha’ s Hill. From there the pressure was on, but was one of the many back of the packers who saved the best for last and ran the final two splits as his fastest of the day.
Here is Nangolo’ s story in his own words …
“ I started cramping just 20 kilometres into the race, and by the time I reached Drummond, 25 minutes behind my plan, I knew I’ d have to pull a rabbit out of the hat if I wanted to claim my Backto-Back medal. In the second half, it became a mental game. I kept telling myself,‘ Just claw back a few seconds every kilometre. You’ ve been here before.’
Little by little, I edged my way back into contention, and with 1km to go and the countdown booming through the speakers, I emptied the tank. Somehow, I ran my fastest split of the day in the 90th kilometre and crossed the line with just 22 seconds to spare. I guess you could say I got maximum value for my entry fee!”
These articles were originally published on The Running Mann’ s blog and are adapted and republished here with his permission. You can find more of his blogs at https:// runningmann. co. za
91